On Thursday, December 5, the first ever screening of the film Il Santo di carne, dedicated to Saint Alphonsus, took place in the Sala Teatro Italia in Acerra, near Naples. The room was packed with people specially invited to the event. There were the film’s director Giuseppe Alessio Nuzzo, the director of the Secretariat of Culture of the Campania Region, Rosanna Romano, the mayor of Acerra Tito D’Errico, the bishop of Acerra Mons. Antonio Di Donna together with other bishops including the Redemptorist Mons. Antonio De Luca, the Provincial Superior of Southern Europe Fr. Gennaro Sorrentino with various other confreres who came from nearby communities.
Why Acerra? Why this film? Why this title? Acerra at the time of Saint Alphonsus was part of the diocese of Arienzo, and this was associated with the diocese of Sant’Agata dei Goti, entrusted to Saint Alphonsus, who resided in Arienzo for several months to escape the humidity of Sant’Agata. Bishop of Acerra today is Monsignor Di Donna, who knows, loves and is inspired by Saint Alphonsus in his pastoral ministry. His first letter to the Diocese was entitled In dialogue with Saint Alphonsus. His approach to our founder, mediated by the biography written by Fr. Theodule Rey Mermet, motivated him to “dream” a film dedicated to the sainthood of Neapolitans and the most Neapolitan of saints. This dream has come true. Produced by Paradise Pictures, thanks to funding granted by the Campania Region, a film lasting approximately sixty minutes was shot, destined to be distributed first in Italian cinemas, and then to be shown on TV and other channels.
The documentary-film route was chosen: some parts are recited; others correspond to interviews. The film is a pleasure to watch, it develops through beautiful images and with a pressing rhythm, following seven “chapters”: the man, the missionary priest, the theologian, the artist, the bishop, the comedian, the mentor (or spiritual father). Saint Alphonsus is played by the actor Enrico Lo Verso. There are frequent passages where the saint walks among the people of today, or in the degraded outskirts of Naples. Often, in the interviews as in the recited parts, the human side of Alphonsus returns, who is questioned by the experiences and especially by the abandoned people he meets. This inspired the title The very human Saint.
If the choice of the documentary-film has the merit of offering a first and almost complete overview of the life, figure and message of Alphonsus de Liguori, it must be said that this same choice entails a limit: the transition from the drama to the interviews, which moreover takes place within a film of only an hour, does not allow us to enter sufficiently into the existential journey, into the interior and often tormented search of the saint. More time would have been necessary, and perhaps a more substantial budget. For example, among the seven chapters mentioned above, the one on the “founder” is missing, which in the biography of Rey Mermet occupies pages rich in details and painful search for the will of God. On the other hand, it was the bishop himself, Monsignor Di Donna, even before seeing the film, who said: “let’s see what came out of it! In any case, reading a good book – as happened to me with The Saint of the Century of Enlightenment – transmits sensations and emotions that a film cannot always transmit.”
On the other hand, it must be said that in an age in which people read less and less, and where the cult of the image increasingly dominates, The very human Saint remains a beautiful work, which will allow many people to get to know a multifaceted personality like Alphonsus de Liguori.
Fr. Serafino Fiore, CSsR.
The documentary film ‘Il Santo di carne’ by Giuseppe Alessio Nuzzo starring Enrico Lo Verso arrives in cinemas from 5 December.
